Archive for the ‘Sane voices’ Category

Six weeks without a post, OMG! Not because I had nothing to say, but perhaps too much to organize into something readable. Or maybe I’ve just found it too difficult to locate suitable images to go with the posts. Well, forget that, it’s time to get back to blogging.

And it was nearly six weeks ago that Miles Kimball blogged about some great ideas expressed by Dilbert creator Scott Adams for improving taxation of the “rich.” Adams’ piece was published in WSJ, I can’t figure out which date, I don’t know how long the public link will last and I can’t actually figure out the title of the article. Adams’ point, if I understand it correctly, is those who pay the greatest amount of taxes would more willing to do so, if given suitable nonmonetary incentives. He suggests maybe the top 100 taxpayers should be invited to a celebratory dinner at the White House, where they’ll be praised for their contributions to America. (I wonder whether richest-men Warren Buffett and Bill Gates would qualify for this event. More likely a bunch of wealthy heirs and heiresses who got poor tax advice). Another idea is that top taxpayers should get certificates allowing them to violate certain regulations, such as parking in handicapped spaces or using carpool lanes alone. (Of course, the very wealthy wouldn’t worry much about the fines such actions would impose if unauthorized). Or, suggests Adams, maybe the top taxpayers should each get two votes (which would make no difference in election results compared to the influence the wealthy can already buy).

More important, I think, is Adams’ point that, if you can’t think of a good idea, it’s best to think of some bad ideas and offer them for criticism. It’s a technique I have used with fair success (my role being to offer the bad idea).

But the main lesson we can draw from Adams essay is that,if your idea regards public policy, then no matter how good (or bad but creative) it is, nobody powerful will pay attention to it until it’s expressed by somebody who is already influential. Thank you, Scott Adams.

Much like Korea, Japan, and other advanced countries, Taiwan has a land value tax which requires it to monitor land value regularly. And they do, apparently pretty well, as indicated by this report that 2011 land values average 8.65% over the previous year. The land value tax could be one of the reasons Taiwan seems to be more prosperous than most countries, but that isn’t my point.

My point is that assessing land value is not exceedingly difficult, if one has competent and reasonably honest assessors. The most valuable land in Taiwan is reportedly under the Shin Kong Life Tower, NT$1.21 million per square meter (about $4,000 per square foot, a figure probably never seen in Chicago).

My only excuse for not posting since last month is that I’ve been diverted with other projects, including the new hgchicago site. The bad news is that it’s still not all there. The good news is that it’s WordPress-based and that the new version of Firefox, 7.0.1, no longer freezes my OS. Never did solve the Opera vs. WordPress problem, but now I’m back to Firefox for most things.

Chicago is no longer a media center, but still important enough to have Occupy action. I stopped by Jackson/LaSalle this afternoon, there were a few hundred people with signs and a good attitude.

Some occupiers

More occupiers

Occupiers

I saw no "media" of the type that has satellite trucks and excessively attractive newsreaders, but Distract Chicago was there.

“All rents tend toward fraud”

Lambert has proposed this as “Lambert’s Law,” but since there appears to already be a “Lambert’s Law” in the field of physics, we could name this one “Lambert’s Law of Rent.” Based on, tho not directly derived from, theLaw of Rent.

Lambert goes on to assert that “a parasitic class of rent-seekers has paralyzed and hollowed out the economy,” which sounds correct to me. Lambert’s post (which actually is not about economic rent) is here.

The logical conclusion, of course, is that public policy should seek to collect for the benefit of the community those rents that cannot be eliminated.

We urge the immediate enactment of the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act, which directs the treasury secretary to compile a list of those financial institutions that are too big to fail in the next 90 days, and to break up these banks and insurance companies a year after the legislation is signed into law

Searching (of course) for something else, I found myself looking at Tom Johnson’s account of the recovery from the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Initially, the community organized for its own relief, everyone was assigned a job and there was no quibbling over money. But after a time…

To meet the problem of a community with no money was not easy, but we were presently confronted with the graver problem of a community with too much money. The greatly exaggerated reports of the loss of property and of human lives, the first press dispatches placing the number of the latter at ten thousand, brought a correspondingly great volume of relief. (more…)